gjm comments on Is this dark arts and if it, is it justified? - Less Wrong

3 Post author: Gleb_Tsipursky 17 November 2014 07:00PM

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Comment author: gjm 19 November 2014 10:49:29AM *  3 points [-]

The task statement there (whether or not it's a real Mechanical Turk task, whether or not it was posted by Gleb_Tsipursky) claims that Gleb_Tsipursky can see who has upvoted his articles and pay accordingly. Of course this is not true, and anyone actually setting up such a task would be unable to determine whom to pay, and would end up either paying people who never actually did anything or else not paying people who did.

I think this looks more like a framing attempt than like a genuine attempt by Gleb_Tsipursky to buy upvotes.

[EDITED to add:] Oops, the above is in fact quite wrong, as ike points out: anyone can see what articles any given user has upvoted. I still think it's quite likely that GT is being framed, but the particular reason I gave here is bogus.

Comment author: ike 19 November 2014 02:09:22PM 5 points [-]

That's not actually true. Anyone can easily see any posts I've upvoted here or for that matter see Gleb's upvoted posts here. The Turk task asks for the usernames, which can then be checked to see which posts they've upvoted.

Comment author: gjm 19 November 2014 02:52:25PM 2 points [-]

Yow, you're right. So:

  • upvotes on articles are publicly visible (albeit clunkily)
  • downvotes on articles are not publicly visible
  • neither upvotes nor downvotes on comments are publicly visible (other than in the aggregate).
Comment author: [deleted] 22 November 2014 05:16:38AM 1 point [-]

downvotes on articles are not publicly visible

They are too iff the user has “Make my votes public” checked in their preferences. Same with upvotes.

Comment author: gjm 22 November 2014 10:17:17AM 1 point [-]

Oh, hey, another thing I didn't know about. Thanks. Not surprisingly given that it's a non-default preference, it seems not to be used much. (I checked the 15 people in the most-karma-in-30-days list and two had it enabled: NancyLebovitz and Capla.)

Comment author: Gleb_Tsipursky 19 November 2014 06:14:08PM 2 points [-]

Thanks for the support! As I mentioned in this comment, the Mechanical Turk requester's name was not mine, as my name on Amazon is Gleb11, as reflective of my gmail account (gleb11@gmail.com). I took a screenshot of my account name and uploaded it here as evidence. The moderators are looking into this issue now, and I hope it will be resolved soon.

FWIW, I asked them to take away any upvotes on my posts that came from spambot-style accounts. I don't want any upvotes that don't represent the actual good-will and support of the community.